paper -
29 Web Documentation Project at UD
David
Hopkins, University of Delaware
The Web Documentation Project at the University of
Delaware (UD) organizes the computing help information available to the
University community. The project's
goal is to provide information to our users whenever they need it in a format
they can understand without having to call the Help Center.
The Help Center realized that it needed a forum to
disseminate information to the University Community after the normal 8-5
workday. This forum would also provide
users with quick information and solutions to common questions without them
having to wait for a return call during busy times of the day or semester.
Using existing Web documents created by Information Technologies (IT) and
calling upon staff members in other departments to fill in the documentation
gaps, the first version of the Help Center web page went on-line in the Fall
Semester of 1996.
Using this web page as a starting point and borrowing
from the newly redesigned University web page and user input, the interface was
redesigned with an emphasis placed on quickly finding information. An alphabetical index was added and the
University's newly acquired Ultraseek Search Engine was customized to search
relevant documents. The new version went
on-line in the Fall Semester of 1999.
Since then, there has been a concerted effort to simplify existing documents and expand the number of areas covered. Prior to this process, most documents were placed in scattered directories owned by the people who created them which led to numerous documents that essentially contained the same information. Now the documents are being moved to central directories that better suit the subject matter and duplicate documents are being phased out. Using this process and user feedback we continue to look for ways to improve the web page and the information provided.